Les turbans rouges

The adventure yarn as it used to be a long long time ago.There's the proud rebel "Sultan" (Brynner) who's fighting against the English (represented by a loyal brave generous officer-Howard- and a villain one -Andrews-).And Andrews looks the part ! As the case often happens,to hear the scenarists ,if a father is wicked,then the daughter is adorable:she's played by a decorative Charlotte Rampling ,who tells Howard -whom she's in love with of course-:"one day ,Sultan and you ,you will meet".Main interest remains the splendor of the landscapes.

That's something you don't see every day . A western that doesn't take place in the United States , has no native American characters or white guys with American accents but THE LONG DUEL is undoubtedly a western that has been relocated from the American plains to British run India . Hey even most of the protagonists are called Indians and that's no coincidence .

THE LONG DUEL is by no means a terrible wretched movie but it is rather mediocre . The story as I mentioned is something that has appeared countless times where an injun war party has gone on the loose and it's up to a sympathetic calvary officer to negotiate with the dove and kill the hawk only this time the Indians are Hindus and the calvary officer is a fine upstanding spiffing chap

The production values are hardly outstanding with some very obvious studio exteriors and back screen projection and no doubt the PC fascists will have a field day when they see that most of the Asians aren't actually Asian at all but a bunch of British actors in dark make up . The film does contain some gun battles and fist fights so it's not exactly a total bore and one scene with a fugitive hiding down a well does contain some suspense . Make up your own mind as to the movies merits

This has simply been unfairly misunderstood. It's a great romantic adventure story exposing conflicting mentalities in the last days of the Indian Raj, when some British already started to doubt their presence there. Harry Andrews is the hopeless imperialist who knows only one way to govern and that by force, while Trevor Howard tries the other way: dialogue and understanding. Yul Brynner is the freedom fighter with a just cause who knows he is right and struggles against opposition in his own camp to achieve it with tragic results, due to the hardcore inflexibility of the British military authorities (Harry Andrews). Charlotte Rampling plays an unusual part as a female diplomatic intermediary, and her character is the only one who is not quite convincing, which unfavourable impression is worsened by her horrible hair style - utterly impossible in India.

Additional merits of the film is the overwhelming sweeping landscape scenes catching the wilderness of the Himalayas, and the music, which underlines and augments the romantic character of the film. Yul Brynner is always interesting and makes memorable characters, and also Trevor Howard and Harry Andrews are well up to their ordinary excellent standard, while the story and its lesson of experience, wisdom and humanity is the main importance of this very underrated film.

Watching The Long Duel put me in mind of the story of Joaquin Murietta from early American California days. At least it seemed that way to me as this story of the Himalayan frontier of India plays a lot like an American western.

Harry Andrews as the John Bull commander of a Himalayan outpost in the British Raj arrests an entire tribe for some specious allegations of poaching. Yul Brynner as tribal chief is among the arrested, but they break out with one fatality.

After that Brynner and the able members of the tribe become brigands and popular heroes in India where the Congress Party is getting most demanding for India's independence post World War I. The provincial governor Laurence Naismith is acutely aware that Brynner and his tribe are becoming popular heroes. Possibly this story is post the Amritsar Massacre which galvanized the move toward independence.

The solution they come up with is to give Andrews a co-commander in Trevor Howard. Howard before his army service was an anthropologist and has studied Indian culture. He's also suspected of the unpardonable sin of 'going native'. But he may be the answer to the Raj's Brynner problem.

Brynner borrows a lot here from his earlier work in Taras Bulba playing the tribal chief. Howard cuts a sympathetic figure as a most unmilitary officer showing his range. A Captain Bligh he is not. He even gets a love interest in Charlotte Rampling playing Andrews's daughter.

I thought the climax was a bit on the unreal side involving both Brynner's son and Howard. More I will not say.

The Long Duel is an interesting saga of those last days of the British Raj though it plays like a western with real Indians.

Brynner and his tribe are removed by the British (Andrews) for resettlement. He escapes and gathers other tribes together to take on the British.

A film of 2 halves. The first is baggy and messy with Brynner looking bored and uncomfortable and Howerd the only interesting character. It all picks up in the second half which is exciting and contains some strong battle scenes. A fair film but considering the cast and director, it should have been a lot better.